Interessenvertretung dringend erwünscht: Was Selbstständige von ihrer Gewerkschaft erwarten

With over 2.3 million, there are more individual own-account workers in Germany than self-employed persons who have employees working for them. As with any employee, own-account workers seek for good employment conditions for themselves. Trade unions therefore are confronted with the question of the extent to which they want to represent the political interests of these self-employed without personnel. About 30,000 members of the United Service Trade Union in Germany (ver.di) are self-employed. Ver.di therefore draws on many years of experience in this field. The article presents the findings of an online survey, in which 834 self-employed members of ver.di participated, mainly from arts and media-related professions, IT-services, consulting and healthcare professions. The focal point is the analysis of their occupational situation, their professional challenges and what they expect from their union. The majority of the respondents urge ver.di to engage stronger in the representation of the interests of self-employed members. First and foremost they demand to be recognised as having an equivalent status to employed members.